1,971 exhibitors from 52 countries participating and 390,000 visitors from 140 countries are expected to attend DRUPA, which again offers a mix of special shows and events including the DRUPA cube (a conference platform for daily changing half-day symposiums) and the DRUPA Innovation Park.

With stands in both Halls 2 & 16, ITL and IST-Metz expect the event to mark their most substantial promotion to date with a staffing of around 50 throughout the show and dozens of live demonstrations on customers own stands. Prior to the show ITL has worked tirelessly; producing more than 16 UV LED units in the 3 weeks prior to the show alone in order to fulfill last minute customer demand to exhibit this exiting new technology.

Sales Director Dave Johnson comments; ”it is heartening to see a product that we unveiled just 4 years ago at the last Drupa being adopted today in such widespread commercial use. The ITL stand will again be a showcase for all that is the latest in UV LED system technology”

Come meet us at ITL: Hall 16 A45-1, IST: Hall 2 B20

ITL shared a booth at February’s Printable Electronics Show in Tokyo with local distributor NEopt where ITL Japan’s Business Development Manager Yasushi Katsuta reported a strong response to the company’s products.

“Our UV systems were a focal point of the Neopt product program,” reported Yashushi. “There were encouraging levels of interest in UV curing with over forty per cent of enquiries targeted at our technology.”

In a move mirroring ITL’s strategy in China, the company recently opened a direct representative office in Tokyo, providing technical sales, parts stores and administration functions for the territory.

Meanwhile, ITL found itself the leading foreign supplier of UV curing solutions to domestic manufacturers showing at Guangzhou’s 19th South China International Printing Exhibition this March.

The Guangdong province is the largest region for China’s printing industry with around 20,000 printing enterprises while the Pearl River Delta Region as a whole is home to over 40,000 print businesses, accounting for 50% of the country’s total printing production value.

ITL China Business Development Manager Sam Yang said: “We were clearly the most prominent foreign supplier of UV equipment at the show with nearly thirty per cent of domestic printers on show running ITL systems.

“The most popular solutions were our lightweight, high output SubZero arc systems and the SolidCure N UV LED, both brands receiving very positive feedback as well as order interest.”

To keep up with demand, additional production of the lightweight, high output, miniature SubZero UV emitter is now in underway at ITL’s newly completed operations facility in West Shanghai, where the company is building established ITL products to satisfy the growing demands of the local market.

Pictured Left: Sam Yang, Right: Yasushi Katsuta

Also representing strategic partner IST Metz, the stand joint-showcased emergent curing applications for a growing range of media at the show, which remains an ideal environment to platform new technologies alongside existing market leading solutions according to ITL managing director Adrian Lockwood.

“While the exhibitor numbers were clearly lower than in former years, total visitor attendance exceeded expectations at around thirteen thousand,” he said.

By far the largest market share of the UV equipment shown at Fespa was from ITL with, over 27% of exhibited platforms operating with the company’s UV technology.

ITL’s SubZero system was again a popular choice amongst exhibiting machine makers. Lynx Digital, a newly formed European company, launched a new UV flatbed carrying SubZero 085’s. Capable of printing on board, foam and metal substrates, the Lynx 250FB-UV will cater for growing demand for high-quality, medium format production.

Unico launched a new UV hybrid platform carrying SubZero 170’s and Marabu Inks used a DYSS machine fitted with SubZero 085’s on its stand to demonstrate the company’s latest range of UV inkjet inks.

ITL UV LED was also in evidence at FESPA with Machines Dubuit from France launching a new rotary tube printing machine running ITL Pincure Plus UV LEDs.

Over 80 senior representatives from many branches of French industry subscribed to the day event in central Paris, organized by IST France.

Eight papers were presented by senior industry and academic experts including two from ITL’s Adrian Lockwood, who gave presentations on the current status of and future trends in inkjet and industrial applications for UV LED curing. Other papers covered topics including chemistry, polymerization, inks & coatings, and food packaging.

Adrian, who also assisted in moderating at the day’s concluding question and answer session, cited the event a ‘great success for all concerned’.

“There was a clear benefit felt by delegates, all of whom had paid to attend, in the quality of information provided and this was reflected by their response to the event,” says Adrian. 75% of attendees have subsequently requested follow up meetings.

The Paris pilot seminar precipitates a newly-launched program of UV LED topic events by IST with the next events likely in the USA and Spain.

Guest speaker ITL sales director David Johnson addressed an audience of 200 industry experts on the future for label printing with focus on the flexibility that LED’s offer over traditional lamp systems.

“This was an excellent event for addressing a specific topic to an equally specific audience and offered first class networking opportunities for us,” commented David.

“The response revealed delegates demand for more and more consistent information on the matter as technologies at so fast a rate as they do and this is an area we shall be looking at further.”

ITL Korea is expanding its contract to supply bespoke UV LED arrays to consumer electronics products makers. The company has recently supplied more than 30 UV LED systems to one of the country’s electronics giants, LG, while Samsung has also taken delivery of a large highly sophisticated UV LED system as part of an undisclosed micro –electronics project. Business

LEDZero Areacure

Development manager Lewis Yun from ITL Korea attributes this success “…to ITL’s ability to deliver a project driven custom solution, including fully clean room compatible products. Some of the engineering challenges we have overcome include operating UV LED’s in a vacuum and at temperatures of -15˚C or lower“.

Business growth in Korea is marked by ITL’s decision to appoint an additional sales manager in the territory and to relocate its Seoul offices this summer to larger premises

In addition, ITL is providing large addressable array curing systems to another undisclosed Asia based client for use in product assembly of PDAs and related mobile screen-based device development. ITL is branding these new large format addressable arrays as “Areacure”

Pioneering UV curing systems developer, Integration Technology Limited (ITL) has published a comprehensive expert guide to UV LED technology.

“The UV LED Handbook” covers a broad range of relevant topics spanning the basics of UV curing and UV chemistry, to health and safety, system integration, LED measurement, costs and economics.  The book also features chapters on the evolution and history of LEDs, how an LED works, and how UV LEDs are manufactured.

The 150-page guide, which debuts at the RadTech UV&EB Technology Conference and Exposition, April 30 through May 2, 2012, is authored by ITL General Manager – North America Jennifer Heathcote and Paul Mills, both experts in UV technology and UV LED commercialisation.

“UV LEDs are starting to be embraced by both existing users of UV and newcomers seeking expert knowledge on why and how to adopt the new technology,” says Heathcote. “This book satisfies a growing thirst for accurate, non-commercial, technical information on the subject.”

UK-based developer ITL markets a diverse programme of UV arc and UV LED systems, including the LEDZero Solidcure, LEDZero Pincure, LEDZero VTwin, and LEDZero HiCure brands used in a wide range of graphic arts and industrial curing applications.

“The UV LED Handbook” retails for $19.95 and is available from ITL sales offices worldwide.

More on ITL at www.uvintegration.com

“FESPA kick starts the industry year with a comprehensive product catch-up that cannot be missed,” says ITL managing director, Adrian Lockwood.

“As such, it’s an ideal environment to platform our new technologies alongside our existing market leading solutions.”

The show 21st – 24th February 2012 at the Fira de Barcelona Gran Via, Barcelona, Spain – covers the latest wide-format digital printing machinery, consumables, software, narrow format, digital textile, substrates and finishing solutions from over 400 exhibiting companies.

ITL and IST are showing on Stand S33 where Adrian Lockwood, David Johnson, Staci Reeson, and Hansjoerg Ritcher will all be on hand to advise visitors on the fast-growing adoption of UV LED.

There is more on this exciting development in our next e-zine but meantime, welcome Yasushi Katsuta, Business Development Manager of Integration Technology Japan.

Osaka-born Yasushi holds a University Degree in Engineering and joins us from NEopt where for the past two years he has represented ITL interests in Japan.

He previously worked extensively for inkjet print head maker Xaar as development and sales Engineer.

Yasushi has been making the finishing touches to the new ITL office in Mitsugi Zyuhan Building, Fuchu-shi, Tokyo. Fact-finding missions in the first quarter of 2012 to ITL in the UK and to IST in Germany support his role in providing technical sales, parts stores and administration functions for the territory and its exclusive distributors.

ITL has operated in Japan since 2001 in conjunction with NEopt supporting its digital graphics market business and Finesensing handling a growing number of specialist industrial applications for ITL technology.

Meet Yasushi at the Printable Electronics exhibition from 15th to 17th February in Tokyo – NEopt has a booth to show ITL UV curing systems.